"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
– U.S. Vice President J. Danforth Quayle
Competiveness and the feeling (justified by recent history) that
your side has a decent chance to win, increase turnout;
this fact is supported by all 7 of the following studies:
G.Pillsbury, J.Johannesen, J.Arp:
America Goes to the Polls
A report of voter turnout in the 2006 election,
www.nonprofitvote.org.
(On page 9: the "non-competitive" states had 37% turnout and the ones
with "competitive" governor and/or senate races had 45%.)
Vanderleeuw JM, Liu BD:
Political empowerment, mobilization, and black voter roll-off,
URBAN AFFAIRS REVIEW 37,3 (Jan 2002) 380-396
Endersby JW, Galatas SE, Rackaway CB:
Closeness counts in Canada: Voter participation in the 1993 and 1997
federal elections,
JOURNAL OF POLITICS 64,2 (May 2002) 610-631
Nicholson SP, Miller RA:
Prior beliefs and voter turnout in the 1986 and 1988 congressional
elections,
POLITICAL RESEARCH QUARTERLY 50,1 (Mar 1997) 199-213
HILL KQ, LEIGHLEY JE:
PARTY IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION, AND COMPETITIVENESS AS MOBILIZING
FORCES IN GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS,
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE 37,4 (Nov 1993) 1158-1178
SE Galatas:
Electing the first parliament – Party competition and voter
participation in Scotland, PARTY POLITICS 10,2 (Mar 2004) 213-233
Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel Francois:
The impact of closeness on turnout: An empirical relation based on a
study of a two-round ballot,
PUBLIC CHOICE 127, 3-4 (Jun 2006) 469-491 Abstract: Several methodological difficulties emerge from the
empirical evaluation of the impact of closeness on turnout. The most
critical resides in the use of the actual electoral results to
assess the impact of closeness. Important doubt therefore remains
with respect to the empirical validity of the relationship between
turnout and closeness. This article intends to explore this
ambiguity by an econometric analysis of the two-round French
legislative elections. The first ballot gives excellent information
to the voters on the expected closeness of the upcoming second
ballot. The results show that closeness, whatever its measure, has
an important and meaningful impact on electoral participation.